March 52:35 p.m.

Yesterday I boarded that same bus from that same
Guadalajara street corner. Yesterday that bus, that number
707, from that Guadalajara street corner where San Felipe
meets Independencia, transported me to Tonalá. On the way to
Tonalá that bus, that number 707, stopped at Guadalajara's
immense new bus terminal. When the bus stopped at that
immense new bus terminal my eyebrows rose. I thought to
myself, "Ah ha! The 707! This is the bus that will carry me
to the bus terminal tomorrow!" For tomorrow, or rather today,
I was to make a daytrip from that bus terminal to Chapala. I
reflected then on the important descriptions I needed to
gather in Chapala. I decided then to start early this
morning. I would arrive in Chapala early today so that my
note-taking energies would be fresh for these important
descriptions. I consulted my guide book. Yes, four daily
departures from that bus terminal to Chapala, four of them
and one very early. I noted the departure times. I noted the
price of passage. I felt myself fortunate. I smiled. That
was the easiest daytrip plan I had yet executed.

This morning I boarded that same bus from that same
Guadalajara street corner. But this morning, that number
707, from that Guadalajara street corner where San Felipe
meets Independencia did not transport me to Guadalajara's
immense new bus terminal. My mistake. I should have asked
the driver. But it seemed to me a redundant question,
moronic even. Just yesterday that bus, that number 707,
carried me to that bus terminal. And right there in the
windshield of that bus leaned a placard announcing "Terminal
de Autobuses." I just claimed a comfortable seat, therefore,
near amidships. I just relaxedly, therefore, opened As You
Like It. And, a half-hour later, the bus arrived at the far
end of a residential neighborhood in the outlying community
of Zapopán. We had traversed the whole of the city of
Guadalajara. I was the only passenger left on the bus.

"Señor, you do not pass by the central de autobuses?" I
queried the driver, bewildered.

The driver grinned. "Al revés," he said. "We pass it on
the way back."

I asked when that trip back would begin.

The driver said it would not.

"This bus does not go back that way," the driver
explained. "Another will come shortly that makes that trip."

I nodded tightly. I debarked. The driver disappeared.
There were no businesses or restaurants about. I stood on a
quiet residential lane of bungalow-style homes. I found a
curbstone nearby. I squatted. I fumed at myself. I
attempted to read a little Shakespeare. But I was too
incensed at myself to read a little Shakespeare. I jammed As
You Like It into my backpack. My early departure had been
spoiled. My energies were being dissipated. I was a fool.

I noticed a man and woman decorating a grassy median in
the lane beyond the parked bus. They were arranging pennants
and favors for what looked to be a little girl's birthday
party. Tissue paper stencils were being strung. A samba was
being played on a portable stereo. I observed these
preparations as my wait lengthened. I listened to that samba
as my wait lingered. Then to a piece of pop music, I
listened, and then to that nameless so-popular ranchero
tune...

A second bus pulled up behind the one I had deboarded.
Then a third bus. Anxiously, I examined these. They were
vacant. The announcements in their windshields provided no
clue to which I might board. The drivers debarked. The
drivers disappeared. Then the first driver reappeared. He
reboarded his bus. He fired up his engine. I rose. I
approached his bus. Still it baffled me that his placard
announced his destination as the bus terminal. He wiggled
his finger at me "no." He made the "momentito" sign with his
index finger and thumb. He gestured back at the third bus.
I inclined my head. I squatted again on the curbstone. I
observed again the man and woman festooning for the little
girl's birthday party. My anger finally began to ease. My
hyper-attention finally began to wane. I was beginning to
submit to the failures of the day. The third bus started
suddenly and began to roll away. I had to run to catch it.

It was a thirty-minute ride back to that original
Guadalajara street corner, a thirty-minute ride back to that
corner where San Felipe meets Independencia. That bus, that
number 706, stopped at that corner. Some passengers there
boarded. Some passengers there deboarded. I moved not at
all. An hour and forty-five minutes had transpired since I
had left that corner. It would be another thirty minutes
before that 706 would arrive at that immense new bus
terminal. But that thirty minutes would pass. That 706 would
arrive. I did finally arrive.

Guadalajara's immense new bus terminal is constructed in
the shape of a horseshoe. Easily it is as large as many small
American airports. Six different salas comprise the
horseshoe's interior, each serving a different point of the
compass.

I decided to give up on Chapala for today. My early
launch was blown. My energies were half spent. And the
descriptions of Chapala are very important ones. I would go
on to Ajijíc, I decided, and save Chapala for tomorrow.
Ajijíc is a little town just west of Chapala, also situated
on the round lake from which Chapala derives its name. To
arrive there would require my bussing to Chapala, and then my
bussing from Chapala to Ajijíc. This would mean more travel
time, of course. But the loss of time would not impact my
work. The Ajijíc notes are not that extensive or important.
This became my plan.

Each of the salas of that immense bus terminal houses
five or six different bus lines. I paddled into the first of
these salas ogling for a bus line that would take me to
Chapala. There were none. I paddled into the second sala
scanning for a bus line that would take me to Chapala. There
were none. I paddled into the third sala squinting for a bus
line that would take me to Chapala. There were none. I
strode then to the information booth of that third sala. The
booth sat empty save for a leather portfolio that lie atop
its desk. Four men grouped themselves nearby, chatting. I
could not divine which of the four would be the information
clerk. I waited for a few minutes. One of the chatting men
eyed me. But none of the chatting men ceased their chatting.
I surrendered. I returned to the second sala. I sought and
found there the second sala's information booth. A young man
hunched within that second sala's booth. He hunched tightly,
reading one of those comic books endemic to Mexican bus
stations. Crime stories, they are, with raffish covers
sporting busty blonde damsels in ripped red nightgowns.

"Excuse me, amigo," I said.

Reluctantly, the clerk looked up from his intent
concentration.

"Excuse me, I want to go to Chapala but I can't seem to
find a company with a destination to Chapala."

The clerk's expression was dour. "No hay," he said
flatly, unsmiling. "There are none."

"No hay?" I answered in surprise.

"No hay. You have to go to the old bus station to get to
Chapala. The old bus station, downtown."

I smiled at the clerk amiably. I thanked the clerk as he
resumed his comic book reading. But I did not believe the
clerk. My guidebook assured me that you could depart for
Chapala from either bus station. And a mistake that gross
seemed to me unlikely from a source that had proved itself
dependable.

I returned then to the first sala. I sought and found
its information booth.

"No hay," an affable young man concurred.

"No hay?" I answered this time with even more surprise,
for now I began to believe.

"You have to go to the old terminal, my friend," the
affable young man said. "Look right out there. See that
white bus? That mini-bus? That white mini-bus goes from
terminal to terminal. Take that mini-bus. It will take you
to the old bus station."

I thanked this clerk warmly. I believed this clerk
unreservedly. I was a-sprint. I boarded the white mini-bus.

Almost three hours had passed now since I first boarded
that 707 at that Guadalajara street corner. Three hours since
I had left that street corner where San Felipe meets
Independencia. Three hours and now again I was heading back
into the center of Guadalajara.

As the white mini-bus threaded its way toward the
center of Guadalajara I relinquished any hope of making a
daytrip today. I calculated that by the time I arrived at
the old station and located and boarded a bus that would
carry me to Chapala from which I would then have to bus to
Ajijíc, I would have little time to accomplish any real work
before I had to begin the process all over again, in reverse,
in order to return to my lodgings in time to get enough sleep
that I might work with great energy tomorrow on those
important descriptions of Chapala. Besides, my mood had
soured.

So my plan, as I bounced along on that white mini-bus,
became to simply arrive at the old bus station, find the bus
line servicing Chapala and fix in my mind the steps I would
have to go through tomorrow morning in order to make a
successful early sally. This is what I did.

Afterward, I found the perennial row of city busses that
idles in front of all bus terminals. I boarded the bus at the
fore of the row, the one with the word "centro" shoe polished
on its windshield. Soon the bus was underway and, at last, I
felt I could relax. I sighed as this last leg of my
convoluted journey began. I sighed as this confused day's end
approached. Gazing out the window, I blearily watched for
the emergence of the dual church spires that mark the
Guadalajara centro. I daydreamed about the pan dulce above
which I now sit as I watched. I daydreamed about the coffee
over which I now hover in this Sanborns. But time passed.
And those signal dual spires did not resolve in the skyline.
And I began to wonder. My confident boarding of this city
bus had been based on two basic assumptions. One, that this
was the city bus which at every bus terminal of every city
and town travels directly from the bus station to the centro.
And, two, that when I boarded this city bus I was not already
in the centro. The first of these assumptions is based on a
pattern I've observed now for ten years. A pattern, in fact,
that has made it possible for me to navigate several
unfamiliar towns and cities this trip. The second of these
assumptions, however, was based solely on my own perception
of the setting around me. And this I might have muffed.
For, look, the city was growing less and less congested as
the bus continued on, not more so. And what is that? Is that
not a dilapidated sign I recognize from another trip? And
this corner, this right-angle turn we make here, I remember
it from my trip yesterday to Tonalá, and from that trip today
to... And I experienced here what is usually called a sinking
feeling. For the dual spires were not going to appear, I
suddenly realized. And the landmarks around me were all too
telling. It was very clear. I had made another mistake. I
had been in the centro when I had boarded that bus. So that
bus at that moment was not carrying me into the centro. That bus at that moment was carrying me out of the centro. As a
matter of fact, that bus at that moment was carrying me to
the new bus terminal!

I shook my head in a great crackling self-critical
consternation.

At the very next stop I debarked abruptly.

I crossed the street, flushed. I pinpointed a bus stop,
hot. I stewed.

Within fifteen minutes came the number 707 rumbling the
opposite direction. I boarded that bus, that number 707.
Very explicitly then, between my measured breaths, I asked
the driver if his destination was the centro. He grinned at
me broadly, and, with a friendly dismissive motion, pointed at
the placard in the window. It announced "Centro." I nodded at
him with tightly updrawn lips. Some fifteen minutes later
that bus, that number 707, delivered me to that same
Guadalajara street corner from which, five hours earlier,
another number 707 had first picked me up. It delivered me to
that same Guadalajara street corner where San Felipe meets
Independencia.